


The Fiction He Lives

by SilverMiko



Series: Sight Unseen [8]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Big Brother Mycroft, Episode: s03e01 The Empty Hearse, F/M, Romance, Series 3 compliant-ish, Sherlock Holmes Has Bad Timing, Sherlock Holmes Has Feelings, Sherlock is a Bit Good, Sherlolly - Freeform, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-08
Updated: 2017-05-08
Packaged: 2018-10-29 10:28:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,133
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10852092
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilverMiko/pseuds/SilverMiko
Summary: #SherlockLives and he's ready to slip back into London and resume his life as it were, except life has moved on without him in the past two years and so have his friends, or are trying to anyway. And Sherlock realizes he might not be as much above sentiment as he thinks.





	The Fiction He Lives

He should have noticed, of course, that he had been watched since Italy. After clearing through the dregs of Moriarty’s web in Istanbul and to the last bits in Serbia, he thought that it was over. He could return home, make the necessary and briefly awkward revelation of his resurrection to John and the other, and resume life as Sherlock Holmes. He would start taking cases again, his name cleared, and he would resume his experiments at Bart’s. He’d be able to work with _her_ again, the unassuming pathologist the world always overlooked, but who counted the most. He could see it now, sweeping into the lab with his Belstaff swooshing like some sort of cape, as he strode forth with purpose. 

But, as the blunt object descended against the back of his head and he dazed in and out of consciousness through long car rides, that homecoming would have to wait. If it ever came yet. 

The questioning began after a few days of solitude in a cold cell, then the beatings when instead of answering their queries he deduced everything about his captors. It became a routine, really. Questions. Pain he dissociated from within the confines of his mind palace. Solitary confinement. He could tell the number of weeks from the length his hair kept growing. He’d had a broken rib, fractured fingers, and probably more scattered injuries. But it was only his body, really. Just the transport. It was the mantra he told himself with every fist connecting to his side, every stinging whip of rope. 

In solidarity, he relived a few old cases, the memories flickering to life like a film strip. In them he was back home, in London, and delivering the answers to particularly challenging case puzzles to John, who always typed at his laptop. Mrs. Hudson would appear with tea, and Graham? George? Would arrive with a new case. Without cigarettes or drugs, the memories kept him going, kept him from dulling. From being so bored he’d lose his mind.

It was during the torture, however, when she would appear. Dressed in her coat, that cream-colored cherry print jumper, and sensible trousers. Hair always in a ponytail. Molly Hooper, cheerfully sounding off the list of injuries he was receiving and how best to set them back in his cell. Making a bad joke about how his captors clearly knew little about anatomy from their clumsy targeting. Suggesting it might be interesting to go over some old pathology experiments they’d done together instead. Was it reliving the experiments that helped, or was it simply the memory of her? 

A year ago he’d never even consider the question too thoroughly. But that Sherlock perhaps had really died after jumping off the roof. All he knew was that if ever got out of there, ever got home, he would find a way to better answer that question. 

He would no longer take Molly Hooper for granted as horribly as he had, always had.  So all he had to do was hang on, not break, stay alive.  He would go home, he would pick his life back up again, get back into the game and all would be right with the world.

And after six something months of it all, strung up for another round of questioning and beating, his hair so garishly long and in his face, he could have almost laughed then and there when he heard one of the men speaking. Recognized the voice doing a bloody good pass at Serbian as he dismantled the other soldiers in the room.

_Mycroft_. In the field no less. God, he must have hated every minute of it and yet there he was to rescue him, his errant little lost brother. 

“Now listen to me. There’s an underground terrorist network active in London and a massive attack is imminent. Sorry, but the holiday is over, brother dear. Back to Baker Street, Sherlock Holmes.” He had come, and very likely at no small expense, and Sherlock didn’t even want to guess how many resources had been drawn for the effort. It’d almost make him effuse gratitude that would cause both of them to balk. Instead, it was easy to fall back into what always worked best: feigned indifference and overt sarcasm. It was better than collapsing in relief at his brother’s feet, better than laughing madly that he was going home, finally, and would be able to take in London again in all it’s wretched, old, beautiful glory.

But first.

“I hope you have a good barber on retainer.”

Mycroft looked him up and down, frowning.

“Yes, can’t be seen with you looking like that. Come along, brother mine. We have much to catch up on.”

 

***

 

After a month when the usual postcard failed to calm, Molly had willed herself to not panic. Perhaps he’d been busy. Perhaps he was somewhere that didn’t believe in that sort of tourist drivel. Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps.

It was after four months and no word that she felt despair, black and cancerous, in her heart. She’d done her best to pretend everything was fine, but in those quiet moments alone in the morgue working on a cadaver where a stray tear would pool into her protective goggles, or when she’d grow silent and withdrawn watching telly on the sofa with Tom, the cheerful mask fell. It reminded her of one of their last conversations, her telling him about her dad adopting a similar cheerful mask until someone wasn’t looking.

No one was really looking at her in those moments, certainly not Tom. Lovely, nice Tom who didn’t notice the details. No, the only person who would have noticed, who always noticed everything, was god knows where and perhaps actually, truly dead this time.

And the lie she’d been carrying wouldn’t be much of a lie anymore. It made her sick with worry. Made her want to text his number, begging he give word. Begging he keep making her a liar because it was better than the alternative. 

She could live with lying as long as he actually lived. 

As long as he eventually came back and was in one piece, and telling her how rubbish she was at small talk even though he was always engaging in it with her when no one else was around, when he didn’t have to keep up the aura of the Great Sherlock. She wouldn’t even mind him commented on the three pounds she’d lost and wondering if domestic bliss did suit her this time. Well, if he did come back it meant the eventual introduction to Tom; lovely, plain Tom, and she’d welcome that awkward moment because it would mean he was back. 

Because if he was dead there were so many things she hadn’t said to him, always there hiding below the chatter and smiles, that the thought of it would haunt her forever. Because for all his brilliance she had to wonder if the man who noticed everything had even begun to be able to deduce her heart, the very large something he generally always missed when it came to people, most of all himself. He tried very hard to pretend he didn’t have one, of course, but nobody did what he did on that roof if they didn’t care. She hoped he’d realized this, wherever he had been the past two years, though a bit sad at the thought it’d take dying for him to realize it. And even if he did, would that actually make him change how he let others see himself?

In truth, probably not so much. But God, she wanted to find out and this time it would be different. No more meek mousy Molly. Too much had happened to keep that face up as well. And maybe it was for the best? Because they couldn’t go back to how it was before, not after the fall, not now with Tom. No, it’d be Hooper and Holmes again. Working together, friends maybe, and all it required was the small trick of him returning. Being alive.

So she’d thrown herself into work, smiling shallowly on the weekend when her and Tom had drinkies at the pub with his mates. He didn’t seem to mind her extra hours, it wasn’t like they even lived together. They probably should be, by now. Probably should set a date too, she thought, sliding her ring off and leaving it in her work locker as she began another twelve hour overnight. But it was hard to think about that when the worry took her over like a sickness. When her mind was preoccupied with that other curly-haired man. 

And because she’d been ignoring the world, ignoring the internet, she’d missed the flurry of tweets baring one singular hashtag: #SherlockLives.

It wasn’t until morning, as she walked down the hall massaging an aching shoulder with the glorious intent of going home, that her otherwise uneventful day was about to become extraordinarily eventful. She approached her locker, opening the door and stifling a yawn as she checked the mirror briefly, expecting tired eyes and a face that begged for coffee. What she saw instead reflected next to her own reflection, was another face with a pair of familiar blue eyes smiling at her from the mirror. Her mouth hung open and she whipped her head around, her surprised features quickly morphing into happiness as a smile ghosted across her face.

“Sherlock,” she whispered, not even a caring at all the affection pouring out in that one word.

He smiled down at her, as if he’d popped right out of her memory. Black curls tousled as always, eyes glimmering with intellect, enigmatic in that great coat of his. God, he even had on the bloody scarf. 

“Alive again,” he said, softly, in that rumbling deep voice of his. She had missed that voice. 

She wished she could say she had acted cool in that moment, made some clever quip about needing to change the status of his death certificate (a quip she thought of twenty minutes after the fact), but in fact she did the opposite of cool and launched herself at him, wrapping her arms around him tightly and feeling the sold, real, living warmth of him.

He was probably affronted. One did not hug Sherlock Holmes, it was far too much a display of caring and emotion for his supposed taste but she really couldn’t be bothered to care because for all she had done, well, she at least deserved this! 

“You’re okay, you’re okay,” she mumbled over and over into his coat, choking back tears because there was only a certain amount of uncool she was willing to be in one day. She expected some clever retort on how he managed to be there, a monologue outlining every circumstance where he’d avoided peril. Instead, his arms that had hung at his side came around her and his gloved hands pressed lightly at her back in welcome pressure. Sherlock Holmes was hugging her back and it was more shocking than any sort of James Bond-esque explanation she had expected.

“Sorry about not sending more postcards. I ran out of change.” 

She half laughed, half sobbed at her mouth moved against his shirt now. 

“Liar,” she murmured, fully aware of how intimate the moment was. She should stop it, but thankfully he took the action for her as he slowly backed away from her to look at her.

“Not terribly good at it anymore when it comes to you though.”

“You were never that good in the first place, Sherlock, I always knew.”

“Molly Hooper….” he began, staring at her in a way she’d never seen before. His face seemed less guarded. Whatever he was about to say he definitely had her attention. “You look like you could use coffee. Monmouth’s?”

She blinked, not expected that, her mouth working open and close for a moment. 

“Yea sure, you’re paying. You owe me.”

He didn’t protest and she grabbed her black coat and followed him out of the hospital. She was surprised when he led her to a black cab that took them through the City and across London Bridge to Borough. So it was *that* Monmouth’s then. 

They thanked the driver politely as Sherlock paid, and ushered her through the empty green-framed market.

“Sherlock, was that cab waiting the whole time?”

“Yep.” he said, popping his “p”.

“Either you were really sure of yourself or I really am a foregone conclusion.”

“Don’t sell yourself short, Molly. We haven’t seen in each other in years, and more than anything else you would gladly murder the Queen herself for a cuppa after an overnight so really, it was the logical deduction.”

“Just for that, you’re also buying me a croissant,” she teased, a grin plastered across her face. This was better, this ease between them like it used to be. She was keeping her promise to herself about her decorum.

Luckily, it was just past the early morning rush where the line wasn’t too long, but all the tables were still crowded. So they took both their coffees and pastries to sit on the small bench attached the wall, watching vendors set up for the day and hosing off the market pavement. In a city rife with historical landmarks and sights, none of that all compared to how much she loved this very spot best in the whole of the city. Maybe it was the hustle and bustle, the centuries-old history of trade and liveliness, how charmingly tucked away it felt. But right then and there, in her favorite spot with her favorite person, she felt refreshed as if coming out of a long, fretful sleep. ‘ _ Former favorite’ _ , part of her mind chided. She looked at her hand, ring now missing. Blasted, she’d left it in her locker. Ah well, she had no plans with Tom today so it’d be fine. The ease of dismissing any need to rush to go get it should have concerned her, but she didn’t care in that moment.

Not when Sherlock Holmes was alive, real and solid next to her. Having coffee with her. Her mind circled back to years before in the lab where she had tried and failed to initiate this very event. She couldn’t help the giggle that slipped past her lips as she laughed into the rim of her cup, taking a long sip.

“What is it?” he asked, blowing at his own coffee.

“Black, two sugars, right?” she replied, laughter still in her voice.

He looked at her for a moment buffering and she watched as his mind worked it out in a few seconds.

“Ah...yes.”

“Nothing gets past you,” she quipped, feeling more easy in his company than she had in years. Goodbye, Mouse. Hello, Hooper. 

“Nothing did get past me. I knew what you meant that day.”

“You did not!”

“You had come back into the lab with lipstick freshly applied, tried making an icebreaker about how my day was going, then asked me when I was finished if I wanted coffee. I realize social situations weren’t my expertise but contrary to what I let on, I didn’t misread your intent.”

So his reply of how he took his coffee, making a show of not understanding what she meant...ohhhh! Well, she supposed that was one way to let a girl down gently. They shouldn’t keep talking about this, those feelings were in the past. She’d moved on. So she changed the subject and asked about John.

Sherlock regaled her with the not-so-friendly reunion between the two friends, and despite herself she couldn’t help but chuckle. After assuring him he didn’t have a broken nose, she took another long sip of coffee.

“You couldn’t expect we’d have all just been standing still while you were gone. John was really cut up about it all. I tried staying in touch a bit, emails here and there. But sometimes it was too hard to face him with, you know, everything. I’m sure he’s pretty cross with me right now, I take it?”

“He’ll get over it.”

Molly sighed. Sometimes he just didn’t get it all.

“Sherlock, it’s not something one just gets over that easily.”

“And if you were in his shoes?”

“You mean if you had lied to me and let me think you were dead all this time?” Oh, she knew how she’d react. She’d ran over that very same scenario multiple times in her head and all led back to one conclusion. “Then I’d probably punch you as well, and then I would never speak another word to you to again so long as I lived.”

He looked at her, assessing, and she could tell he realized she meant it. No flattery or apologies would have ever been enough.

“Right then. No lying to you anymore.”

She almost sputtered out her coffee, choking.

“What? I am capable of honesty.”

Molly side-eyed him, long and hard. Oh yes, he could be honest. He had two settings: brutal honest and white lies. But that had been then.

“It’s just...that was a good joke, Sherlock.”

“Mollllly….” he drawled out, in that admonishing tone she couldn’t believe she actually missed, “I never joke.”

“Right, but I agree. You shouldn’t anymore, you know. Lie to me that is. I’ll just see through it anyway.”

“Because you see me.” It wasn’t a question, and Molly felt her heart hitch.

“Always,” she said softly.

It was too much, this was too much. She had to go, she had to leave. Thank god her flat was a few steps away.

“Well, thanks for the cup I do really need to get upstairs and feed Toby. If there’s anything you need…”

You.

The word, the memory, hung between them.

“I’ll text. Same number as always.”

She smiled and left, her face warm as she bounded up the stairs to her flat and leaned against the door, exhaling a rush of breath.

He was alive, he was back. He was okay.

That would be enough for her. And so yet again, she tried to close that door. 

 

***

 

“I see your non-existent dating skills are as woeful as always.”

Sherlock watched as Eliza slid smoothly to sit next to him, dressed in black trousers and a white tee under a deceptively casual-looking but clearly expensive anorak jacket. Her eyes were hidden by a pair of sunglasses.

“Is this a business call, so soon? I thought you were still upset at me.”

“Think of this more as tea, or rather coffee and sympathy. And yes, I am still not entirely happy with you but someone has to be the adult. I take it transitioning back into being Sherlock Holmes is proving difficult?”

“Mycroft’s texting fingers a bit too active again? Get him a diary, it’d be easier.”

He knew she wouldn’t rise to bait. She was endless loyal to Mycroft but would never insult him so much as to feel the need to defend him. 

“So you’re on the outs with your mate, trying to dodge questions on how you faked your death, while trying to navigate around your feelings for Dr. Hooper. Busy agenda, Sherlock.”

“Feelings? Please. Sentiment is a chemical defect…”

“Found on the losing side,” she finished, doing a rather good impression that somehow was a cross between himself and Mycroft. “I know you wish you could be as quick as Mycroft, but do try and be more original. I’ve spent a large part of my career doing reconnaissance work and I’m pretty good at it, if I say so myself. And since I’m not your brother, who chooses to filter out sentiment, I see those little, inconsequential details you two always deem unimportant. In your case, used to. A word of advice, don’t be a massive twat to her anymore.”

Sherlock blinked.

“Did you just…”

“Say a bad word, yes. Don’t tell Daddy.”

This was positively ludicrous. He didn’t need social advice from his brother’s bloody assistant, especially when it came to Molly Hooper and his supposed feelings for her.

_‘Supposed? That’s rich,’_ part of his brain whispered. More to the point, why did Eliza of all people care? It wasn’t as if she genuinely worried about him any more than her job required, as married to it as she was. He sometimes wondered why Mycroft trusted her so much and tolerated her. Were Mycroft any other type of man he’d assume it was because of her objectively attractive face, but that’s not what motivated Mycroft. No, she wasn’t lying when she said she was skilled.

“Why do you care? Doesn’t Mycroft Holmes’ assistant have better things to do?”

“Chief of Staff now, darling, do keep up. And as to why? I like her.”

What? He raised an eyebrow.

“Dr. Hooper,” Eliza clarified, “I like her. And for some reason that escapes me she likes you.”

“Of course she does, she’s my friend. We’re friends,” he explained, hating how it felt such a denial of something else. 

“Friends now? That’s good, Sherlock. It’ll make it easier.”

“Make what easier?”

“That’s not for me to say. You’ll know soon enough though. Anyway, try to be home for elevensies tomorrow. I hope your operational skills are still keen.”

He watched her get up and go, and chugged the rest of his coffee. He preferred it so much better when Mycroft just sent unassuming minions to watch from a distance. At least then he could almost pretend Big Brother wasn’t watching. But damnit, Mycroft had been right about his flawed assumption he could just come back like no one had moved on.

As torn up as John had been at his death, he had moved on. Met Mary, who was proving to be different than the other, disposable ladies John had always brought back to Baker Street. But as much as she might try, and promised she would talk to him, he had to wonder if John was going to forgive him. Even with the promise of a new case, knowing for a fact John missed the thrill of the chase, it wasn’t enough. Hadn’t been enough.

London had moved on without Sherlock Holmes, and if he were a man more prone to existential crises, he’d be in a whopper of one right now.

Right then, time for the next stop on the Ressurection Tour and to let Gary know he was alive. Or was it Graham?

He found him later of course, sneaking a smoke, and he expected Lestrade to also be ticked but instead the detective, in surprise, rightly called him a bastard and then hugged him. Actually hugged him. The second one of the day. Right, so hugging was in now, it would seem. He supposed it was nice that some people actually missed him and really, his nose could only take so many hits.

Lestrade offered him a cigarette, and Sherlock relished the first inhale. The man might have dodgy taste in women, but knew how to choose some quality tobacco. 

Later, after talking a bit and Sherlock insisting he was fit for consulting again, Lestrade’s expression turned to a wince.

“He was right all this time, and we thought him crazy.”

“Who?”

“Anderson. Insisted you were still alive, went mad because of it. Wife left him, we had to put him extended leave. He and Sally felt pretty badly about it all, when everything got out. She never wanted to talk about it afterwards, and he wouldn’t shut up about it.”

“God, if being alive actually proves him right for once I should have stayed dead.”

“Don’t you even dare. That was a brilliant but cruel trick, Sherlock. I assume Molls helped you out? That was Anderson’s favorite theory.”

“Of course. It couldn’t have worked without her.”

“Oh I’m sure. Doesn’t mean I’m not going to give her a lecture next time I see her about it for being in on this, but I’m glad you roped her in on it.” 

“Why’s that?” 

“Does it really need saying? Christ, Sherlock, imagine if she had actually thought you were dead.”

No, he would have never let that happen, not in a million years. From the moment he conceived the plan she was always part of it, always going to know. He would have never let thought that. He didn’t need to imagine, he’d run through every scenario and all ended in the plain fact that if Molly Hooper thought he was dead, he was fairly certain there’d be little to console her. He might not have deduced it so well before the Christmas party, but afterwards, when all the little words and small talk added up to the bigger puzzle, he knew. And as vital as she was to his plan succeeding, her convenient position at Bart’s, her medical skills, flawless discretion, and as much as he could tell himself that’s why he needed her even he couldn’t pretend that part of it was to also spare her from the grief.

As much as it had hurt John, which he had to tried to spare with his lies about not being that great, John was also a soldier. He could handle it. He would have handled it. And they’d only known each other for a year anyway. 

After all the years she had suffered his antics and sometimes his bullshit with as much grace and aplomb as a person could muster, there was no scenario imaginable where Molly Hooper wouldn’t know the truth or be part of it. Not after Christmas.

“Well, she did know and what’s done is done,” he declared, stubbing out his cigarette on the pavement. “So any new cases? Tell me you have something that’s at least a seven.”

“Not yet, but if I do I know where to find you.”

 

At Baker Street, course. Where after giving Mrs. Hudson an awful fright he had dusted off what needed dusting and settled back into his chair. God he loved that chair. He had missed that chair. And the tea and biscuits. And dressing gowns, like the red one he currently wore over his shirt and trousers as he focused his concentration on Mycroft’s next move.

He’d arrived right before eleven, just as Eliza had tipped off. Just checking in, seeing how things settled. Mycroft almost seemed disappointed John hadn’t broken his nose. They sat to play the old familiar and challenging game that required skill and precision as they talked of the supposed imminent attack. Sherlock had looked into it, but nothing was standing out too much to the consternation of his brother who was sure, absolutely sure, something was coming. Of course Sherlock made a few digs here and there, but conceded in explaining the markers. He’d been watching them, using his network to spy. At first to humor Mycroft’s respect, but also he was curious and needed something to distract him. Still, it was odd to see Mycroft worried. Perhaps that’s why he had slipped up and made the wrong move.

“Oh, bugger!” the tell-tale buzz the sound of failure.

“Oopsie! Can’t handle a broken heart. How very telling,” Sherlock said, smugly.

“Don’t be smart,” Mycroft replied snippily, yet again reminding Sherlock who was the supposed smart one, and how they were oh so different from the others. Or used to be. “Oh yes, friends. Of course, you go for that sort of thing now.”

Sherlock knew Mycroft meant it as insulting, and perhaps once he would have made some snide remark back, but it didn’t make him scoff anymore. If anything it made him wonder, and since Mycroft went down this particular discourse…

“And you don’t? Ever?”

It had made him wonder since Serbia, since Mycroft swept in under the guise of being motivated by national security, if that was really how it was. Mycroft, the original “this man is an island” that Sherlock had templated himself on; was he really so content to be so alone? 

“If you seem slow to me Sherlock” Mycroft began, “can you imagine what real people are like? I’m living in a world of goldfish.” 

Sherlock studied him, steepling his fingers. 

“Yes, but I’ve been away for two years.”

“So?”

“Oh I don’t know. I thought perhaps you might have found yourself a goldfish?”

Perhaps it was mostly to tease his brother and make him uncomfortable, but if his time underground had shown him anything, it was that no man was truly an island. Not Sherlock Holmes. Possibly not even Mycroft. Besides, he may have no friends, rarely be interested in other people, but wasn’t he always with Eliza? Didn’t she at least count?

Mycroft, however, appeared appalled. Perhaps not. 

“Change the subject, now!”

And so it was back to talk of the supposed underground network and an interruption by Mrs. Hudson who was still beside herself giddy that her favorite tennant was alive and tried to evoke some warmth but Mycroft, failingly. 

“He’s secretly pleased to see you, underneath all that.”

“Sorry, which of us?” Mycroft asked.

“Both of you.” 

And with that, she left the room with the upper hand. Mrs. Hudson 1, Mycroft 0. Sherlock suspected that one day, Mrs. Hudson was really well and truly going to pull the rug out from under Mycroft and she just hoped to bloody hell he’d get to see it. 

Now then, time for the next game. He glanced over to the woolen hat on the table. Simple deduction, it’d been ages since he’d bounce off someone at his level and Mycroft should be up to the task. And, Sherlock had an interesting hypothesis to prove. 

And so, the volley of deductions began because Mycroft just couldn’t help himself. Well-traveled. Anxious. Sentimetal. Halitosis. Isolated. Male. And Mycroft had reasoning for every trait except the one he was missing, ignoring. Isolated. So Sherlock gives his reasoning, because someone wearing such a stupid hat probably isn’t hanging around people.

“Maybe he doesn’t mind being different. He doesn’t necessarily have to be isolated.”

So close, there it was. Sherlock leaned in on it more.

“Exactly.”

“I’m sorry?”

“He’s different, so what? Why would he mind? You’re quite right. Why would anyone mind?”

He catches the moment Mycroft realizes it, realizes the whole point of this game.

“I’m not lonely, Sherlock.”

“How would you know?”

Because Sherlock knew, firsthand, what it was like to be so oblivious. He’d insisted he was fine alone, acted as if he didn’t need people, but then he was always surrounding himself with them, wasn’t he? Molly, Lestrade, Mrs. Hudson, John.

Mycroft left with the excuse of work, looking dazed by how the conversation turned. As he left, Sherlock shot a wink to Mrs. Hudson, who had come back in the middle of things and stood in the kitchen giggling.

“Right, back to work.”

He threw himself into puzzling out the underground network more, explaining a few things to Mrs. Hudson, who insisted he needed to talk to John. He had tried, and he told her as much. He couldn’t just change John’s mind.

So casework it was, but admittedly, he wouldn’t have minded some help. Someone good at notes, someone smart enough to do their best to keep up, someone not an idiot (well there went most of London), someone who could work with him and his methods.

Molly Hooper. He knew she’d always been interested about this part of things, the stuff she missed outside of the lab. And she had done so much for him, perhaps he could return the favor a bit? It’d never honestly be enough, but it was something. 

Before he knew it, he had sent a text.

 

**Please come to Baker Street at your earliest convenience.- SH**

**Sure thing, can leave right now. What’s this about?- Mxx**

**Tell you when you get here. - SH**

Sherlock waited by the window in a manner that one might almost call wistful if they didn’t know him any better. He’d texted her thirty-three minutes ago, and sure enough he saw her long pink and black scarf flapping in the wind as she approached 221. He heard her bound up the steps as he still faced the window. 

“You wanted to see me?” she asked.

He glanced to the side at her words, mouth itching to grin. Oh, he had wanted to see her. For 17 months and twenty days he had wanted to see her. Today was as good a day as any to test out his theory.

“Yes.” He spun around, pacing towards her with his hands in his pocket in full-on Sherlock Holmes swagger. 

“Molly, would you like to solve crime?”

“Have dinner?”

Their words had overlapped each other, but audible enough to cause each other to respond in a look that clearly said, ‘what?’

“You’ve always helped me before with my cases, thought perhaps it was time to try you out in the field. I’ve gotten used to working with a partner and well, I seem to have a vacancy.”

“Because of John.”

“Yes, but to be fair I was working with you before he came into the picture.”

“Right. So where do we start?”

He blinked, surprised she had acquiesced so quickly. He had expected more questions, more hesitation.

“What’s the matter?”

“You agreed pretty quickly is all.”

She smirked, almost cheekily.

“Well, it’ll make for a great journal paper. ‘The Science in Deduction.’”

He smirked back. Clever girl. As she shrugged out of her coat and took off her hot pink gloves, he sat her down and quickly launched into the cases he’d picked to take on, catching her up to speed, and doing his best to ignore the tell-tale sparkle coming from her left hand and the way it made something seize up tightly within his chest. 

She was brilliant of course; inquisitive, sensitive but clearly worried about trying to mimic John when the first client was in. And so he’d told her, she wasn’t there to be him, she was to be herself. He had worked perfectly fine alone before John, and didn’t need someone to pretend to be John. When he wanted to try out another partner, he had genuinely meant her as herself.. She had looked quite chuffed by that and he realized he’d probably far too many times accidentally mixed them up during cases. She only knew the times he accidentally called her ‘John’ but not when in the middle of looking at body parts in the kitchen, he’d absentmindedly call John ‘Molly’ when asking to be handed something. Lost in his focus the people around him tended to blur sometimes but it was nothing personal. But he could see how it made the people in his lives feel interchangeable, perhaps.

Later on, at some point past her striped jumper joined her coat leaving her in a still loud-looking blouse, she sat at the desk in his sitting room taking notes as he talked to the next client and tried his best to be more sensitive in his approach. She was worried about her missing pen pal, and despite what he assumed he could and would tread softly softly.  Molly didn’t like it when he was being a git, and he didn’t want to make her leave.

“And you really thought he was the one, didn’t you? The love of your life,” he replied to the client, but couldn’t help how his gaze automatically lifted to look at her. She in turn, lifted her head to look back. She seemed surprised by his words, but was that really what had made her lift her head to look? Their gazes locked, and he knew the answer then the question he had asked himself alone in a cell weeks ago in Serbia on what was keeping him going. He had always known the answer. It didn’t take his level of genius to also deduce the implied subtext those words also might have meant to Molly. Perhaps that’s why he had said it, in some ways the client reminded him of her. A woman suspended along on hope, that’s what made it cruel. It had been so much easier when Molly had just tolerated him, had been so much easier when he had fooled himself into thinking he felt the same. But that was college, they had grown way that past over the years and despite everything she was still there when most people would have abandoned him. But how much longer would she be there? He kept ignoring that one hand. Instead he turned those feelings onto the matter at hand, namely the stepfather. He stood and walked towards Molly, to clue her in.

“Stepfather posing as online boyfriend," he whispered.

“What?!”

“Breaks it off, breaks her heart. She swears off relationships and stays at home, he still has her wage coming in.”

It made him angry, because A) it is a rather appalling thing to do to a person and B) was it really all too differently from how he used to behave to get what he wanted?

“Mr. Windibank you have been a complete and utter piss-pot!”

They continued through a few more cases, and it was almost too easy. Shared glances, bouncing ideas back and forth. In many ways Molly was technically a better crime-solving partner when it came to skill than John. But, as they examined the skeleton Lestrade had found and her deductions almost tripped over his leading to the same conclusions, things began to crack. 

“This going to be your new arrangement, is it?” Lestrade had asked.

“Just giving it a go,” Sherlock replied, curtly.

Molly was lovely, as always, brilliant as ever. Sherlock always lamented people not being able to keep up with him, so it took him completely off guard when there was someone who could. Where he would normally interject with facts, Molly had suddenly spoken up.

“Male, forty to fifty,” she said decidedly, and then looked a bit sheepish, “sorry, did you want to be…?”

“Er, no please, be my guest.”

Wasn’t this why he thought of her for this? Her expertise and skill? Why shouldn’t he let the trained pathologist make the deductions. But it felt so off suddenly, and perhaps that was why John’s voice kept disrupting his thoughts, calling him out. ‘You jealous?’ 

He shouldn’t be, but then he was so used to being the one to make the deductions that had baffled everyone. 

“It doesn’t make sense,” Molly began.

“What doesn’t?” Lestrade asked, just seemingly grateful to get some answers.

“This skeleton, it can’t be any more than…”

“Six months old,” Sherlock chimed in alongside Molly, finishing her sentence. Perhaps it was childish, needing the validation, but wasn’t he the consulting detective here? So when he found the hidden compartment and wow-ed Molly and Lestrade he felt himself preening again. 

SMART ARSE. Again, John’s voice.

It was driving him mad really, the way John’s voice crept through as he was trying to solve this case. Either he was going mad or just needing to face the truth: Molly’s company was lovely, but he missed doing this part with John. Molly was clever and wonderful but the dynamic was just...it wasn’t the same. 

 

***

 

He had been so lovely, as best as he could be, but it shouldn’t have surprised Molly when Sherlock’s demeanor changed towards her around Greg. It was always like that; her private Sherlock, the one she saw when no one else was looking who was more man than machine, always got locked up behind the mask when others were around. She should have been used to it by now and had learned not to take it personally. Even though he had assured her he didn’t expect her to be John, that he didn’t want her to be John, she wasn’t bloody stupid. They’d been having fun, of course, but she could tell he missed his friend. She was just happy things between them had changed enough where she could be herself again, where that annoying nervousness didn’t creep in anymore. It felt so easy, so of course it couldn’t last. 

“Why indeed, John?” he had called out from around the corner as he departed. He’d done it again, confused her for John. She sort of understood though. Still, Greg gave her a mildly pitying look.

“I guess some things don’t change, eh, Molls? Great work though, really I mean it. I should have Sally give you a ring when she gets stuck on cases like this, she still can’t bring herself to ask Sherlock for help.”

Molly raised a brow at Greg. She had been rightly pissed at Sergeant Donovan (and Anderson) for a good while, but then when everything came out clearing Sherlock’s name and both ended up very contrite it was smothering the amount both had gone out of her way to apologize for things. Or in Anderson’s case, press her also for more details. Poor Philip, he’d really gone off it with his theories but the scary thing was how close he had come to piecing out the truth. Perhaps they hadn’t given him enough credit before when it came to his skills, but then his attitude really hadn’t done him favors at the time. Still, Molly had always tried to be sympathetic. Anderson might have behaved like an arse to Sherlock, but it wasn’t exactly unprompted. She had to imagine it was hard to spend years training and rising through the police ranks in the forensic team only to constantly be outdone by a consultant. The ironic part was that Philip actually was really competent, but the two were like oil and water and sometimes even she couldn’t take Anderson’s attitude when it went too far. Every now though, after everything that had happened, she’d humor him for a drink to talk, because as mad as she’d been at his part in smearing Sherlock’s name she was a decent and nice person and Anderson’s whole life had fallen apart. The worst part was he was so close to being right, and perhaps it was the guilt that made her agree to be his confidante sometimes. His wife had left him, but things there were dicy anyway. Sherlock had always assumed it was Anderson in the wrong when it came to his marriage, but Molly knew from a night out with the lads of the Yard years ago that Mrs. Anderson had checked out of the marriage well before Philip had. So when he and Sally had started up something it probably appeared all tawdry but she had promised not to say anything, even if it meant clearing up Sherlock’s perspective. She was good at keeping the secrets, and Toby kept hers.

But Sally, Sally always walked the line of being either too sorry or too stubborn to be sorry and as if she still didn’t know where to land on with Molly. They could work together, be cordial, but Molly wasn’t exactly keen on the idea of doing it more.

“I think I’ll stick to my current job, thanks. I better catch up to him,” Molly replied, waving towards the door and then a quick goodbye and she half-ran and walked to catch up with Sherlock, who apparently had been waiting outside for her. As she walked towards him, her phone pinged with a barrage of text messages. From Meena.

**He’s alive! The bloody git is alive!! DID YOU KNOW?- MK**

**MOLLY HOOPER YOU TEXT ME BACK ASAP.- MK**

**Whatever you do don’t go ga ga over him again, you got a nice bloke now.- MK**

**Tom, remember? Actually nice, lovely, normal fiancee?- MK**

**Oooh I bet you’re with Mr. Posh Spice right now! CALL ME. -MK**

 

Molly snorted at that last one, and glanced up at Sherlock. 

“You waited!” she called out, reaching his side.

“Of course.”

“I didn’t expect that, say, you will be there.” she said, fighting a giggle as she almost sung out the last words. Oh yea, she thought, taking him in, definitely Posh Spice.

They headed to the next stop, the train enthusiast’s place. She can’t help but giggle at ‘Mind the Gap’ as a the doorbell. And people thought her sense of humor was awkward. She might make the occasional dead pun as her voicemail message, but she certainly didn’t have her doorbell play a death knell. 

Mr. Shilcott, the client, led them inside and she could tell Sherlock was trying oh so hard to keep his sarcasm in check, especially when Shilcott mentioned his girlfriend, which had earned him a stern side-eye from her as if to say, “behave.”

To his credit, he did as Shilcott explained the strange situation of the disappearing car as she and Sherlock exchanged some bemused glances in the process. Molly learned firsthand why it was ‘car’ never ‘carriage’ and probably more than she ever wanted to know about the Tube. But it was odd wasn’t it? A car disappearing between Westminster and St. James when there were no stops between them and it was such a short ride.

Oh, this was definitely above a seven on Sherlock’s scale and she could tell his interest was now definitely piqued as he temporarily withdrew into his mind palace, recognizing the man in the footage.

He was still partially lost in his mind as they reached the stairs outside Shilcott’s flat, until she bounded back up them. Sherlock opened his eyes suddenly, talking about needing maps.

“Right.”

He breezed past her on the steps.

“Fancy some chips?”

She stopped, wondering if she heard right. It had been so casual, slipped out as if it was nothing.

“What?”

“I know a fantastic fish shop off Marylebone Road. The owner always gives me extra portions.”

Chips. Dinner. He was seriously asking her to dinner? Then again, she has mistaken his question earlier in the day as asking to have dinner, perhaps this was his way of humoring her?

“Did you get him off a murder charge?” she joked, keeping it equally casual. She was well aware of how Sherlock’s favors usually came with some benefits, like always having a table at Angelo’s or low adjusted rent. Not surprising he had a chip shop in his pocket too. But if he wanted to eat, it meant he didn’t consider himself working anymore. He never ate while working. So it wasn’t exactly business.

But they were friends right? What was some chips between friends?

She knew exactly what it was.

“No, I helped him put up some shelves.”

She chuckled at that, something so ordinary. Can’t all be murders, she guessed.

“Sherlock?”

“Hmm?” he asked from the bottom, glancing up at her.

“What was today about?”

“Saying thank you.”

“For what?”

She felt something heavy settle over her. She didn’t know why she needed him to say it, clarify. She knew. She knew what it was. 

“Everything you did for me.”

The weight sank on her more, but it was both good and bittersweet. 

“It’s okay, it was my pleasure,” she said, trying to make it sound like nothing. Trying to avoid a conversation she both craved and feared. She moved to the bottom of the stairs as if she could perhaps outwalk this. 

“No, I mean it,” he replied, and she knew he was being sincere. He didn’t need to stress it, she knew. They were past the games and false niceties, he didn’t need to qualify this to her. 

“I don’t mean ‘pleasure’. I mean, I didn’t mind. I wanted to.”

She was fumbling with her words, regressing, but she wasn’t prepared for this, prepared to feel all this again. Again? Ha, as if it ever went away. 

He moved closer to her, speaking softly but intently.

“Moriarty slipped up, he made a mistake. Because the one person he thought didn’t matter at all to me was the one person that mattered the most. You made it all possible.”

She closed her eyes, fighting to hear over her hammering heartbeat as it banged in her ears.

Oh, why couldn’t he have said this two years ago? 

She heard him draw in a breath.

“But you can’t do this again, can you?”

“I had a lovely day. I’d love to...I just um…” she couldn’t finish. How did this somehow feel like saying goodbye all over again? 

“Congratulations, by the way.”

She knew then, that he knew. That he had noticed the ring. It shouldn’t be like this, this should be happy news. Instead it felt like the worst breakup of her life. Even breaking up with Moriarty had been less awkward. But she and Sherlock had never been together, it shouldn’t be like this. So she did what always happened in these situations. Babbled.

“He’s not from work,” she began, and saw Sherlock’s pained smile, “We met through friends, the old-fashioned way. He’s nice. We, he’s got a dog. We go out to the pub on weekends and he...I’ve met his mum and dad and his friends and all his family. I’ve no idea why I’m telling you all this.”

It was as if she was trying to tell him in not-exact words that she had moved on, trying to tell herself and doing miserably in the process. Why was she even bothering to explain? Yes, he had just said she mattered but it wasn’t exactly a declaration of love and they had never been more than...whatever they had been. She had no claim on him, he had no claim on her.

_‘LIAR’_ part of her mind whispered.

He stepped closer to her though, face softer than she’d ever seen it before.

“I hope you’ll be very happy, Molly Hooper. You deserve it. After all, not all the men you fall for can turn out to be sociopaths.”

She wished he was lying, wished he was just playing at being nice like he used to. She never thought she’d want that but part of her desperately did. Because it was worse knowing he was sincere, that there was something almost suspiciously like heartbreak in his tone.

“No?” she asked, a question that should have sounded more like “of course no” and less like, “why not?!”

“No,” he said softly, as if sadly resolute. He stepped closer again and did the last thing she’d expect Sherlock Holmes to do. He bent forward and pressed a kiss to her cheek, and if her eyes hadn’t closed at that she would have noticed his eyes locked on her face for a moment as he pulled back. But she hadn’t seen it. Instead she kept her eyes closed as heart broke all over again. It was as if their positions had reversed, she thought sadly. Now she was the untouchable one and he the one with some apparently unresolved feelings. Oh, she wasn’t stupid enough to fool herself otherwise. John and Lestrade might think Sherlock a machine sometimes, even he might think he didn’t care about these things, but the fact that today had happened, that that conversation had just happened, that she had seen him through the entire thing- his face, his tone, laced with the same bittersweet emotion tearing at her, told her otherwise.

God, they really had awful timing, didn’t they?

She heard him as moved out the door. Finally opening her eyes as they warmed with unshed tears. Why couldn’t all the men she fell for be sociopaths, though?

“Maybe it’s just my type.”

She followed out after him, glanced at him going the other direction down the street. She tugged on her gloves, over her engagement ring disappearing in a cocoon of pink. But it couldn’t be her type anymore, could it? No, she’d traded that in for lovely, normal, kind Tom. Tom who she was engaged to and agreed to spend her life with. Tom, who would probably never make her feel half of what she had felt for Sherlock Holmes, but it didn’t matter anymore because what feelings she had for Tom were enough.

They would be enough. 

 

***

_'It was almost enough,'_ Sherlock thought. John had forgiven him, and things were almost as they always were. Except John wasn’t living in Baker Street anymore, John was engaged, Molly was engaged, and everything had changed. Once, he had felt like the center of everything and now he just felt like the odd man out trying to pretend it wasn’t the case. But he put those thoughts away because Mrs. Hudson insisted on celebrating.

So when Molly showed up with her bloke, he had ignored it at first and didn’t understand why John sounded so oddly amused. It wasn’t until he turned and actually greeted Tom, that he saw it. And by God, did he see it. The shoes, the outfit, the coat, the scarf, the hair (did he twist and diffuse it too?)...Christ, it was like Molly had went for a bargain-bin version of him. Oh, the deductions were flying and some things he didn’t quite like but as Tom stared back at him in equal discomfort and vague panic, he wondered if Molly had warned Tom about Sherlock’s deductions. He could tell everyone was expected it from the tense observing (and John’s annoying delighted glee), but he surprised everyone and said nothing and thankfully Lestrade interjected.

“Champagne?”

“Yes!” Molly said. 

Sherlock looked to John, unable to contain his shock, and John just kept grinning as if this was the best damn thing in the world. Sod it all. He stuck out his hand for Tom to shake. He would polite if it bloody killed him for Molly’s sake. And the best way to ensure that was to leave. Had he stayed, he would have seen as she took a glass of champagne from Lestrade, who with all the tact in the world (read: lack thereof), asked Molly if it was serious between her and Tom. 

And she, spiteful, wonderful thing would have replied with all the ease in the world, “Yea, I’ve moved on!”

And Sherlock did not the skeptical look on Lestade’s face. 

Instead, John joined him on the landing.

“Did you...er…?”

As if he needed to ask if Sherlock had noticed it, of course he noticed it!

“I’m saying a word,” he replied, remember the Jim fiasco, even though he had been right in warning Molly off of him, just not for the right reason.

“No best not.”

No, he’d say nothing. He’d start limiting his visits to Bart’s to strictly necessarily. He’d give Molly the space to be happy. She should be happy. 

And as for him? There was always the Game, the thing he always insisted was the only thing he needed. This time his heart didn’t feel that conviction as strongly, but nonetheless the Game was always there for him.

And that could be enough.

**Author's Note:**

> It's always a weird thing to reconcile or guess what that scene with Lestrade and the skeleton was about where Sherlock suddenly kept hearing John's voice in his head, so my best attempt was that while solving crime with Molly in that capacity was lovely, Sherlock is just so used to having John for it. And maybe a bit used to being the only clever one and showing off, hence being jealous that Molly knew the answer too. Showing off when he found something she hadn't.   
> Sherlock spends so much of this episode trying to jump back into life as if nothing had changed when everything changed, no matter how hard he is trying to pretend otherwise so it was fun to play with that and him realizing he actually has feelings despite himself, and especially that he does indeed have unresolved feelings towards Molly, and in some ways now he is in the unrequited shoes. I've always read 3x1 as him realizing too late his feelings, whatever they are, and him wanting one day to say thanks but also a day to spend with her before reality has to crash in. The Sherlock in that stairwell landing with her is definitely not the Sherlock we first saw in her morgue, who would have NEVER had that conversation with her, let alone kiss her cheek so wistfully. Honestly, that scene felt like the most bittersweet "break up" than well-wishes.  
> But soon we'll get into the Watson wedding, the return of Tom, distraction as means of denial, some cheeky drunk texting, and a whole lot of unresolved feelings coming to a head.


End file.
